Don’t worry about the government…

inventive

Mr M. McGOWAN: […] The Premier has been on the case of resolving the matter of the iron ore royalties since the 1990s. He claims in his speech that it was his idea to inject carbon dioxide under Barrow Island.

Mr C.J. Barnett: It was.

Mr M. McGOWAN: The Premier came up with that. At the end of the speech, he says that in the 1990s he was flying down from the Pilbara with Vice-Premier Zhu Rongji, the fellow who was the number two in China. The Premier said in his speech that he talked the pilot into doing a low-altitude figure-eight flight over the North West Shelf and that as a result of that flight we started selling gas to China. A few issues were resolved just by the Premier’s intervention. He, of course, invented the idea that we should fix the royalty rates and inject CO2 under Barrow Island, even though he opposed the development of Barrow Island! He did a figure-eight flight over the North West Shelf with Zhu Rongji and as a consequence we started selling gas to China. I am wondering whether the Premier also invented the internet!

Mr R.H. Cook: But he opposed it first!

Mr M. McGOWAN: He opposed the internet at first, but it was his idea back in the 1980s to link together all the computers around the world! He also came up with the idea of powered flight! When John F. Kennedy said in 1961 that America would send a man to the moon, he had just been on the phone to one Colin Barnett from Cottesloe to discuss the idea! He is a man who comes up with some great ideas. The figure-eight flight over the North West Shelf has resulted in everything that has gone on in China today.

Mr C.J. Barnett: I know that you are being funny, and that is a fair call, but that is not a claim I make at all.